Empowerly

Student profile

List a few words or phrases that describe your ideal college community.(150 words or less)

Hands-on research opportunities to address real-world challenges. Running machine learning models on supercomputers, rather than my MacBook Air. Long days in the lab, always learning something new. Serene afternoons in the library quietly reading. A curriculum where I can explore my diverse interests in computer science, chemistry, economics and philosophy. Inspiring professors who love the subjects they teach. Classes where I want to go beyond the course material. Heated debates over the answers to physics problems, frantically drawing force diagrams in front of whiteboards. Hackathons with friends, chugging coffee to stay up late finding bugs in our code. Cafeterias with lots of vegan options. Weekends in the city on the hunt for the best Indian restaurants. A diverse student body with different interests and backgrounds. A strong LGBT community. Dorm halls with open doors and Friday movie nights... In other words, a campus that I can call home.

List the titles of the required readings from courses during the school year or summer that you enjoyed most in the past year. (150 words or less)

Attending a STEM school, the books I read in class are often related to the science classes I take. Reading Ghost Map and The Plague, I related the epidemics described in these novels to the “Infectious Disease” unit I was learning in biomedical engineering. These connections between the sciences and humanities enriched my learning experience as I gained an increased awareness of the context around these problems. 

• The Plague by Albert Camus

• The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic - and How it Changed Science, Cities and the Modern World by Steven Johnson 

• The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba

• Fundamentals of Physics by Halliday and Resnick 

• In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

• Hamlet by William Shakespeare 

• Moby Dick by Herman Melville 

List the titles of the books you read for pleasure that you enjoyed most in the past year. (150 words or less)

This year, I became interested in cognitive science, reading about how the biases of the mind shape our lives.

• Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

• The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis

• Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman

• Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell

Reading biographies about how others handled crises and made important discoveries inspires me, as I can learn valuable lessons from their experiences. 

• Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah

• Einstein by Walter Isaacson

• Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson

Fantasy allow me to escape into the novel I’m reading -- lost in the magic of another world. 

• Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

• The Game of Thrones series 

• The Wizard and the Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

List the titles of the print, electronic publications and websites you read regularly. (150 words or less)

Print: 

The Seattle Times, Scientific American, Nature, The Economist

Electronic publications: 

The Atlantic - I particularly enjoy their opinion pieces on the American education system and foreign policy.

The New York Times, The Washington Post - I like to stay up to date on current events as they unfold. Both sites have been vital in covering and investigating the many changes that occurred in our country this year. 

Websites: 

Pubmed and Google Scholar - How I look for articles when doing research

Kaggle - A site offering data science competitions. I love participating in these data science contests to improve my programming and problem-solving skills. This year, I was even on the leaderboard for a few contests!

Github - The open access community is what I love most about computer science: a group of people working together to create something better than any one coder could have programmed alone. 

List the titles of the films, concerts, shows, exhibits, lectures and other entertainments you enjoyed most in the past year. (150 words or less)

Films: Hidden Figures, The Imitation Game, Ben Hur, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, The Martian, Interstellar, Moonlight, Carol, The Theory of Everything, The Dead Poet’s Society

TV Shows: Nova Science Now, Modern Marvels, The Office, Parks and Recreation, Game of Thrones, Stranger Things

Podcasts: Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History, Science Friday, Invisibilia

Please tell us what you value most about Columbia and why. (300 words or less)

Last summer, as an fellow of the Simons Summer Research Program, I interned at Stony Brook University. While in New York, I visited the Brookhaven National Laboratories. Standing underneath one of the world’s only particle accelerators, I knew I was in a hub of research and innovation -- New York City. Columbia University, located in NYC, is where I can make my dreams of solving real-world problems with artificial intelligence come true. 

 Pursuing a degree in Computer Science on the Intelligent Systems track, I can learn about artificial intelligence through specialized courses such as Natural Language Processing and Computer Vision. Through Columbia’s core curriculum, I will gain a holistic approach to problem-solving and also get the opportunity to explore my interests beyond my major, such as chemistry, philosophy, and economics. 

Additionally, I look forward to implementing this classroom knowledge to tackle world challenges through research. I hope to continue to conduct research at intersection of computation and healthcare, working at labs such as the Computational Biology Bi-Group. In particular, I am fascinated by the work of Professor Suman Jana with DeepXplore -- the first time a system has been proposed to test deep neural networks, with the potential to revolutionize the field of artificial intelligence, especially regarding self-driving cars. This high caliber of novel research and potential for real-world implementation is what I value most about Columbia’s Department of Computer Science, a leader in artificial intelligence. 

Beyond academics, Columbia has a strong commitment to diversity. As a member of the LGBT community, I hope to join the Columbia Queer Alliance, the oldest LGBT student organization in the world. 

With countless opportunities and a welcoming environment, I hope to join Columbia University and be a part of this thriving, diverse community. 

Please tell us what from your current and past experiences (either academic or personal) attracts you specifically to the field or fields of study that you noted. If you are currently undecided, please write about any field or fields in which you may have an interest at this time (2,000 characters or fewer).

I first became interested in artificial intelligence (AI) when my cousin was diagnosed with epilepsy. We had been biking down the streets of India when she was suddenly hit with an epileptic attack. She fell onto the road, cars rushing past, her eyes rolling to the back of her head amidst the chaos of the traffic around us. 

The memory of this incident haunted me for months as I worried about my cousin. Watching her seize before me, I had felt so powerless. I started researching epilepsy intensively, learning scientists were using machine learning (a type of AI) to predict seizures to notify patients prior to an attack. However, these algorithms were still not accurate enough to mitigate serious harm. Determined to address this challenge, I studied machine learning, experimenting with various algorithms for seizure prediction. After months of work, I pieced together the conclusions of two scientific papers to reach my goal of 96% accuracy, higher than had ever been done before. 

With this project, I realized I wanted to pursue artificial intelligence, with a focus at the intersection of computer science and healthcare. I am continuing research on this topic, gathering extra data from Stony Brook Hospital, with great hopes of one day implementing my algorithm into a wearable medical device for people like my cousin.

Through my project, I’ve had the opportunity to apply my knowledge to work towards solutions for people I care about. Research has helped me overcome my frustration of being a helpless bystander. Instead, I now look for ways to tackle such challenges and empower people through technology. And as I see the elated expression on my cousin’s face while I tell her of my latest development, I know all the hard work was, and will continue to be, worth it.